Lists in SharePoint can contain up to 30 million items. That means your lists can have a lot of data to process and fully understand only by using filters, views, and search alone. Luckily, Power Platform apps are integrated conveniently with lists and libraries. Specifically, you’ll find that Power BI’s integration enables you to instantly create a report of your list’s data in just a few clicks.
Visualize your lists and libraries
In a recent Centriq webinar, attendees saw how easy it is to get started using Power BI even with no prior experience. As long as you are licensed appropriately, you can visualize a list following these steps:
- Go to the list you wish to visualize
- Select Integrate | Power BI | Visualize the list from the ribbon menu
- (Optional) Select Publish to the list if you want it to be available later for yourself and other users of the list. Note that publishing reports requires Power BI Pro.
This essentially uses AI to look at your data, the corresponding data types, and builds visuals based on its findings. You can further manipulate the report by selecting and deselecting fields from Your data pane or do some heavy editing (changing visual types, resizing, adding pages, etc.) by selecting Edit.
Any reports you publish will be accessible from the same menu you used in step 2 underneath the Visualize the list feature. Here are some additional notes:
- You can visualize libraries in the same way as lists
- The report will regularly update as items are modified, added, and deleted
- You can publish multiple reports to the list, and anyone else properly licensed can also publish their own reports. These all appear in the same menu together for anyone with access.
Limitations
This is a powerful feature that enables anyone, regardless of data visualization and reporting experience, to create visualizations of data. But there are some limitations to the feature you should be aware of.
- To enter the full edit experience, publish reports, access reports that others have published, or delete reports, you need a Power BI Pro license (ask your administrator if you’re unsure)
- Data refresh is limited to once every 3 hours
- Guest users cannot use this feature
- Your admin can disable this feature
Reports created via the Visualize the list feature are not able to be embedded on SharePoint pages or in Teams. They’re only accessible via the hosting list or library.
If you want to learn more about Power BI as a standalone product (not just the limited integration for SharePoint) be sure to check out our full-day, immersive Power BI Productivity course.
Resources
- Our recent webinar demonstrating this feature and the accompanying slide deck
- SharePoint limits – Service Descriptions | Microsoft Docs
- Create a report quickly from a SharePoint list in the Power BI service – Power BI | Microsoft Docs
- Power BI admin portal – Power BI | Microsoft Docs
- Power BI Learning Overview | Microsoft Power BI
- Roadmap | Microsoft Power BI
- Microsoft Power BI – YouTube
- Pricing & Product Comparison | Microsoft Power BI